Well, what an impossible reading to reflect on - I mean, by now you are probably wondering, "Is Jesus praising unjust and sneaky financial dealings? Would He be inviting us to take our cue from the clever manipulations of the corporate rogues that caused the financial crisis, for example? Padding their pockets in the moment they are about to lose their jobs? If I read it accurately, the story actually praises the sneaky wisdom of the world, right? And yet, let me ask you, "Would you want this employee as your private financial advisor?"

Well I think that the way the story reads depends on the character you inhabit within it . If you are the Master, this is insane. Your company Profit and Loss statement just took a severe hit. But If you are the one forgiven of debt, you'll be telling your grandchildren about this turnaround moment for years to come. If you are the one who just forgave, and kept your job, this is a really great story! You resisted the criticisms and the social norms, you took a huge gamble and it paid off - you gained the admiration of your Master and kept your job.

It may be helpful to remember what leads up to this story - Jesus had consistently provoked the growing rage of his peers by freely forgiving the sins of those who came to him and some were angered by his daring to forgive sins. In an odd way, this story breaks open a new view of God's impulse to "give the farm away!" This story of the rogue manager is most likely a picture of Jesus and the way he totally mismanaged his role as a Rabbi. He mismanaged the a rabbi's responsibility to dispense God's justice and carefully mete out forgiveness only after appropriate evidence that forgiveness had been warranted and the law had been satisfied. This manager's crazy and irresponsible behavior is a description of the outrageous Divine generosity squandered on all of us.

I also have no doubt that WE would probably scandalize this Jesus today as a rogue. He would not have made it through the ordination process in the Church in Wales. Jesus bypasses right belief, Baptism, synagogue membership and social standing when he goes around forgiving and reconciling so recklessly. I mean, if you knew you could go and find Jesus on the street and experience Divine acceptance in flesh and blood, why would you want to go and pay the temple authorities to put you through the ceremonial ringer? You can see why the institution wasn't keen.

But what if we think through some potential applications of this story and watch our own internal responses to them. Imagine with me a continuum of responses. Over on one end of the continuum, you have "OK, I'm ready to take that idea on, unreservedly!" On the other end you have "Have you lost your mind, Hainsworth?!"

Here's the first one. What if the real objective of our churches is to train and nurture every follower of Jesus as rogue agents of God's radical and outrageous generosity? I mean like going out on the streets and giving away forgiveness and membership and healing and salvation? John the Gospel writer recalls Jesus as saying, "If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained."What if all the other concerns plaguing organized religion became secondary to this?

There is a remarkable story that comes close to illustrating what this idea might look like! One of the most popular videos on YouTube has scored more than fifty million hits in five years - by the way that's 19 hits a minute every day for five years running! Here's the story. In 2004, an Australian by the name of Juan Mann showed up at a party severely depressed and lonely. He recalls how that a random hug from a total stranger that night made him, in his words, feel like a king! It was the greatest thing that had ever happened to him. After that experience, he made a sign offering "Free Hugs" and held it up as an invitation at his local mall. The movement started ever so slowly and invited all kind of resistance. But over the last six years, people in seventeen countries have received "Free Hugs" as random acts of kindness - selfless acts offered as healing to total strangers.

But "Isn't that our job?" How is it that a depressed and lonely man without community has to remind us? We need to be out there on those streets offering those free hugs on behalf of the living God. I think that the Jesus of this parable came to convince us that God longs for us to be reconciled - set free to forgive and love and be made whole and love in return, unabashedly!

Let's ask how else might we freely offer the gifts of the church to the average person on the street? Most of the time we expect the stranger to show up to our church door so we can show them Christian hospitality. In a surprise variation on this, members of a church in San Francisco's have started going out to busy Transit stations on Good Fridays, offering a smudge of ash and prayers for healing to people too busy to show up in church. They've taken ashes and oil and prayers and hugs and God's outrageous love to the streets two years in a row and the response has been, at once, heartrending and so beautiful. So many have said words to the effect that, "Never before have we had the church come to us" or, "We couldn't make it to church but you brought God to us."

"Isn't that our job?" And, isn't that what Jesus models for us in this crazy story?

But let's get really daring here. Ready? What if we worked to make Communion available to everyone - I mean everyone? This is a tough one, isn't it? At this point I find it helpful to remember that, just as franchises are built and maintained by holding out exclusive rights to the brand, religious establishments are tempted to claim a unique grasp on access to the Divine. Of course, I'm an Anglican priest so I, too, am a part of an ecclesiastical hierarchy that's tempted to act like a franchise, as well.  I mean, we say,

"You can offer the wine, but only the priest can hold the bread."

"If you are not signed up with us, You can come join us for the meal but you can't actually eat anything."

"You can attend our services but you have to pay your dues if you want a voice and a vote."

No wonder Jesus' actions infuriated his peers, and their priests. He was defying their constitutions and canons. You could even say that he had slashed the price of Divine forgiveness so much that it was affordable to everybody! And it was accessible. So, can you imagine what our world would be like if just a few of us started to freely forgive each other like this?

Jesus holds out an invitation to us from 2000 years ago. He says something like, If you forgive someone's sins, so does God. If you hold out on to them, though, so does God.

In the barest form of this story, Jesus praises the Manager for acting generously on the Master's behalf. He holds this out and dares us, "Go ahead, get lavish and give it away. Watch how it becomes you! Watch how my world is restored and all of creation is reconciled to my Dream when you say "yes!" to this story.

And so I'm wondering, which wisdom do you prefer, the careful, guarded prudence of the sober and sensible bank manager, or the reckless financial naivety and profligacy of the carpenter from Nazareth? You can only bet your money – and your life – on one of them.

Amen.